MASS EFFECT: SOLE SURVIVOR
by LoneWolfB132
Summary: Akuze. Shepherd. and the lost story of Corperal Toombs. And my first fanfiction. it requires heavy editing


SYSTEMS ALLIANCE 194 REGMMENT

**YEAR:** 9.01.2177

**MISSION:** INVESTIGATE LOST CONTACT WITH SYSTEMS ALLIANCE COLONY

**LOCATION:** AKUZE

**C.O.:** LEIUTENANT COMMANDER SHEPHERD

"Toombs…Corporal Toombs?"

The corporal woke with a start, realizing that he had been asleep.

"_Dropship landing in three minutes"_

"What- sir!" Toombs woke instantly. He stood as straight as he could, not to make any bad impressions of him to the CO.

N7 Lieutenant Commander "Mud" Shepherd was a perfect example of a ethnic cross-bred human. He had round, brown eyes and his cheeks folded inward. His saber-shaped eye brows were jet black yet his hair was brown as earth's dirt.

"At ease, corporal" the commander replied, exposing a hint of Canadian dialect. "Just making sure you aren't sleeping on the job when your sergeant comes."

"Yes sir", Toombs replied, feeling slightly thankful to the commander.

Unlike other commanders, Shepherd was different in both personality and appearance. One proof was that he always dressed in the crewman's outfit instead of the blue officer dress on missions. Another one was that he fully participated in ground operations.

"_Well," _Toombs thought, _"I like to see how good this honest - to - god son of a bitch fights in combat…if there is anything left on the planet to fight for"_

Their job was to investigate why the colony dropped out of contact. Usually when this happened they just had to fight batarian space pirates, but this newborn colony just fell off the grid in seconds. And that never usually happened.

Alexandria Moier tried her best to blend in with the jungle environment of Akuze. Her cloaking device rendered her invisible yet it was very brief. With her sniper rifle in one hand she scanned the landing zone where alliance troops were being dropped. _About fifty N7 marines, _she thought to herself. _Perfect_. N7 marines were highly trained operatives coming in a variety of classes, from hardcore weapon masters to power biotic wielders. Still, they would never be ready for what would come next.

Dr. Wayne was sure he would get his paycheck. Working with Cerberus was always a promise to humans. You everything you wanted: real time to relax and protection of you home, family and money.

Yet you can die at any time.

His job was to work with scientists to study the characteristics of the local creatures. They were working under the cover name "Top-secret alliance project". From what they knew they appeared at night, struck fast, did a hell of mess where they chased and caught their targets, and left no survivors.

_Studying others is the key to their defeat,_ his boss told him. _However studies, require sacrifice._

He looked down at the ground. Was he ready to send many into hell again? He shook his head and got back to working on his report on the last massacre. He would do whatever it to increase humanity's place in the galaxy.

Moier tapped into her omni-tool, which look like a glowing gauntlet that appeared on when to be used, to set up a communications cannel with Wayne.

"50 marines. N7 class.", she told the scientist.

"Have they found the colony?"

"If you count a colony which looks like it has been thrashed by earthquakes, smashed to dust, and completely obliterated, then yes."

Wayne flinched slightly knowing the horror. But he believed a couple drinks would make him forget.

"Very well, I will take my science team to base B on the mountain. From there we can observe our…experiment."

"Very well. One more thing Mr. Wayne: one experiment leads to another one that is different but on the same track. If there are any survivors…".

Wayne stood straighter and his skin went pale. "Yes ma'am."

"What the hell happened here?"

Toombs surveyed the area with open eyes, full of shock

He was used to arriving late on attacked colonies, seeing burnt structures, bleeding people and the silence that followed it all.

Only the silence was here.

Toombs looked as if they had been demolished naturally by huge tremors and the entire area looked as if something had plowed right through it. There was green liquid everywhere, smoke emitting from where it stood. Strangely, there weren't any bodies

His sergeant ordered him and Emily to go in and scout the colony. Few other squads did the same, a pair going in and scouting ahead.

Toombs walked slowing among the wreckage. _"What The Hell Happened here?" _he pondered again, yet not getting a solid answer from the evidence around him.

After a few minutes of scanning the area he came across some big irregularly formed ditch. And in the center was something that looked like it was part of the human skull.

Toombs shivered.

_This is bad…we have got to get out of here….we GOT TO GET FUCKING OUT OF-_

"Toombs relax"

Toombs wide-eyed face darted straight to Emily.

Toombs was now starting to relax, staring at her….her beautiful face, her hazel ringed eyes, and part of her brown hair left uncovered. Ever since basic training he couldn't get his eyes off her and it seemed to be pure luck they ended up in the same squad. However, as good as Emily was to Toombs she never felt the same to him. Yet no matter what she was always a beautiful star in a-

"Hey, marine!" She called again, coaxing Toombs out of his mind. "Wake up!"

After she started snapping her fingers, Toombs came to his scenes

"Sorry, I-" Toombs began only to be interrupted again.

"And say sorry for being sorry for the twelfth time in a row! I've been keeping track since our first mission."

Toombs at first thought she was angry that some daft marine was staring at her and acting like a battle-shocked civilian in the middle of a soundless and lifeless battleground. That would so, if she wasn't grinning at him.

Toombs also grinned back remember their preceding missions…

The mission. The _current_ mission.

Toombs erected himself straighter, holding his gun at his side.

"Anything to report, Emily?"

"Nu'uh corporal" she responded in her melody-sounding tone, shrugging her shoulders. Just the same thing we've all seen scince we entered. Smashed quaters, Green slime-"

"You mean acid, not slime, right cause that's what it looks like."

"Okay scientist, other that nothing else.'

But Toombs wasn't about to let this discussion end. _After all why would he?_ the female marine thought.

"I meant what do you think caused this whole disaster? Batarian space pirates are one thing. But this is something else.."

"Corporal, Private" a calm voice said from Toombs's left

Both male and female marines turned and saluted to Commander Shepherd. To signify his rank, he had a prominent red strip running from his right shoulder to his right hand on his bluish-grey armor.

"We're camping here tonight."

"H-h-here….?But.."

Shepherd raised an eyebrow, "Yes, Corporal?"

"The thing that attacked the colony-"

"Might come back for us" Shepherd replied. "That's why we are camping here. Besides we saw some fresh human footprints so their might have been survivors that fled into the jungle and we have three mako tanks being depoyed in 3 hours. Start setting up camp. Dissmissed"

Toombs saluted the commander again right before shepherd turned around to tell a lieutenant something.

"Ya know? I always wonder why the commander even bothers to come with his troops all the time." Emily stated.

Toombs also was curious about the commander's unusual behavior. "Yeah.. I mean he's almost attached to us, like a family"

Wayne just kept yelling at Bartly.

"You were in the colony looking for loot? Do you know what would happen if we were found out?"

"C'mon I not paid to watch people die. Look, we get cash – showing him all the credits he collected before the marines arrived - we take Ms. Moier's shuttle and drift off to Omega."

"And do what there? Drink for the rest of our lives in the Afterlife Bar?"

" Well…yes, but since no one knows…"

"The marines know, you idiot! They saw you foot prints!" Wayne whispered in a sharp voice

"Well I decided to use trees for climbing after I thought of that; after all you can leave footprints on trees…"

One second he was taking,

The next second, swift move made Wayne's heart stopped.

Piercing right out of Bartley's nose was the blade of a long sword. Then the holder of hilt of this long sword appeared, having deactivating her cloaking, and Moier stood there, her faceless visor reflect the image of a silenced scientist and another scientist stabbed in the back of the head.

"Doctor Wayne" Moier began in cold voice. "What were you thinking?"

"No, ma'am, I…" Wayne was about to explain until Moier pulled her sword out of Bartley's bleeding cranium and raised it ready to strike.

Wayne curled up into a ball preparing for the worst…..

Nothing happened

Wayne open his eyes, hearing the assassin let out a cruel laughter.

"I so can't belive I work with nerds like you…"

Wayne was starting to get up only to have his collar gripped by Moier.

"Do. Not. Make. The Same. Mistake."

Wayne promised he wouldn't.

Then Moier assigned him Bartley's job.

"Get done with your dead friends right now!" she called it. "I have to go to check on others…". She faded back into her camouflage, leaving no trace other than a bleeding corpse.

Wayne just got up and headed to the chemical labs to test the acid that was recovered at the colony after the…monsters left.

He met Andrew and Freeman working on the same project.

"Hey, scotty!" Andrew said in his French accent

Wayne sighed. Andrew always gave nick names to his fellow colleagues.

"Guys" Wayne said "Bartley's plan got him killed."

Silence followed afterward for seven seconds

"Happens on the job, chap." Freeman replied

"Cause there is always one of them in group."

"My family?" Shepherd stated under a campfire surrounded by marines, two mako tanks, the devastated colony in the jungle, and Akuze's four moons in the sky glowing bright in a sea of stars.

"Well….I don't remember my mom and dad…I just ….grew up in this gang."

Everyone, including Toombs and Emily leaned in closer to hear the story.

Toombs, due to him being a colony-born though it was interesting to be once part of a gang, yet Emily, since she too was earthborn, thought of how hard it must be for shepherd to cope with once being someone so cruel and different.

"They called themselves the Tenth Street Reds. We raided harbor ports, malls, parks….Anything with great amounts of loot. I was rowdy, dirty, and sure as heck a pain in everyone's ass, even too my own friends. Then there was this day that changed me forever. Me and four other guys found this passenger ship. We were told to steal anything and kill everything. So we did as we were told…we frocedeveryone to get out. I saw so many aliens and the only human was the driver. They looked so beautiful, so different, and so unique. Some looked like bugs, like lizards, and even one of them was covered in some kind of suit, hiding his identity"

But then Tarken started shooting them. I heard a cry of a baby alien form one of the corpses. I looked at her and knew she was a Asari. She was completely blue from head to toe and instead of having any hair she had this crest like thing on her head. Even her tongue and eyes were blue. But she…..too, suffer the same fate."

Shepherd looked down. His voice changed into a somber tone

"I couldn't sleep for six days….until one day I announced I was leaving the gang in order to join the alliance… all my old friends just gave cold hard me looks, the same they would gave to a traitor…"

Shepherd looked up at his troops. His new family.

"And that's how I ended up here."

Shepherd faces his battalion. Brothers and sisters to the end.

Instantly, flip music blared from behind him.

"Johnson! I told you to turn that carp off!" Rebecca hollered.

"C'mon gal. its classic"

Shepherd recognized the music instantly. It was Sheddin' by Martin Donnell of the band Bongie

He sat back, listening to the music. Unfortunately, he and a few other officers were the only ones who enjoyed that genre.

Another thing blared right next to him. It was the primary commination cannel, that connected with everyone's communication channels.

"_Sarge, do you hear?Get Outta ….. there are these things That are cahsing us, GO NOW!_

_DO YOU HEAR MY GET THE F-"_

Then suddenly a loud ear-piercing scream followed.

_AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!_

Everyone froze in place.

"Everyone to the Makos! Thomas check the com-"

The ground started to shake

Each second it got whole lot louder.

Then right under the one of the mako tanks it happened.

A hug, twisted, and terrify wormlike creature erupted from the ground and ripped up the machine above it. Twin arms which resembled kukri blades stuck out from its arms. It body was shaped like a long hexagonal prism, and it's "head" looked kind of like a huge octopus attached to it; the head as the neck and the eyes as multiple antennas. In the center of the crown of tentacles, a cone-shaped tongue emitting a cool blue goal dripped green acid onto the ground beneath its shadow. The creature, surveyed the camp fleeing signs of life….Dinner was here.

Three other's emerged up behind it…..

And they all attacked at once.

Emily barely had time to doge the incoming green spit that struck Johnson.

She looked back only to find the bottom half of his body left intact, the rest of him being burned by the acid.

"EMILY!" Toombs called under the gunfire, screams, and alien roars

To her left, Rebecca was using her grenade launcher to fend off one of the creatures.

At fist she was successful, but then an arm quicker that the eye could see impaled her from the front of her face and scooped her up into the creature's jaws.

Emily froze, speechless at the scene only to have her arm suddenly yanked.

She turned to see Toombs dragging her to one of the last two mako tanks, which we firing their cannons and rapid pace.

Emily could see Commander Shepherd with Mater Sergeant Smietarksi, firing off shotgun rounds in one hand with assault rifles blazing in the other. From seeing the condition of their armor, they didn't look physically okay.

A helmet landed at Toombs a feet and he let out a yelp of surprise.

Private Korowai's served Head was still inside it.

Emily shook off the shock and then took Toombs hand and led him into the mako.

"Now would be a very good time to get the hell out of here!"

She soon realized that she yelled right in her CO's face, with her spit trailing down his cracked visor.

"Sorry sir, I meant…. Cane we-"

"Punch it, Kenny!" Smienstarksi ordered.

"Aye, Aye Sargent" the driver replied, activating a series of buttons.

Toombs closed the mako door, locking himself away from all the bloodshed and screams of both human and alien.

The other mako picked up a couple more lucky soldiers and both revved up its engines and sped off.

"_Mike Zulu seven, this is PFC robin. Lets get going. Last one to the landing zone is-"_

"There aren't going to be any last ones" Shepherd said, his voice hard as the core of planet.

"_Aye, Aye"_

Toombs started shaking again, but Emily held his hands. His were so cold yet hers with warm.

"We are going to make it right? I' don't want to die out here!"

The Sargent stared at him with a heavily disgusted face. But before he could say anything, Shepherd put a hand on his and Emily's shoulders.

"We'll make it"

_Commander! Those giant worms are tailing on us!_

Toombs and the sarge looked out the mako's window. And they saw that those serpent-like things were trailing underground, breaking up the ground above them. Another instant, one of those creatures, although it was slightly smaller, crashed right into the PFC's Mako tank, stopping them.

Toombs's mako ran past it.

Shepherd turned off Comms for the moment. He couldn't stand another scream.

Wayne never flinched at the view screen. He and six other scientists were on the look for any survivors from the marine camp using their satellite imaging within the bunker of base B. None.

Then he decided to direct some of thresher maws (their name for the creatures) to the primary landing zone.

An evil grin spread across his face.

_This gonna be good_

The marines inside the mako came to a horrid sight.

They saw the dropships also being thrashed and destroyed by the serpents as well.

One of the ships was able to escape the turmoil.  
"_Commander!_" The sole surviving pilot called over heavy static. _"There is a hill to your left of this place. If you can get there, I can pick you guys up."_

"Were you able to pick anyone else up?" Shepherd asked desperately.

"_Negative sir. They just ate or fried other twenty guarding it."_

The commander filched. That was half the marines sent down here.

"Emily is anyone else still out there?"

Her face pale, and she silently shook her.

"Diver get this piece of junk to the hill to our left NOW!"

"Yes, sir"

The creatures also followed their prey.

Uh…Wayne?" we got us a situation!

Wayne peered over freeman's shoulder on his satellite observation.

And was shocked at what he saw. An alliance mako tank and dropship were retreating to the mountain which hid their bunker.

Followed by a huge pack of the creatures!

The tank was almost up the hill.

Only to have its rear wheels fried from repeated acid spit.

The dropship landed on the hill. Since the creatures couldn't slither up the mountain for some reason, all they could was shoot their acid at range.

Emily was following shepherd while Toombs carried Smietarksi, whose face was slowly being cripple after taking a hit from the acid.

"OH GOD IT HURTS IT HURTS" the sergeant wailed

Unfortunately Toombs lost his footing fell, dropping Smietarksi's body which rolled down the hill, with two of the creatures ready to eat it.

Toombs looked up and saw Emily and Shepherd had already made it to the dropship, which was being defended by the pilot outside who used a missile launcher.

At first they looked like they were going to make it.

But he was wrong.

Emily turned once more behind her to see Toombs getting and running.

"Hold this position!" she ordered.

Shepherd was about to ask what in the name of death she was doing until he saw Toombs struggling to climb up the mountain.

Toombs was telling them to take off but they persisted in waiting for him.

In an instant a spit of acid hit Emily square and the chest hand went right thought her. She collapsed, letting out a whimper. Shepherd looked at her condition. The acid went right though her right lung and continued to burn her flesh. Now she was starting to cry. Shepherd used his medi-gel to stop the increasing pain, but the pain inflicted would already ensure he death.

Toombs watched in horror as his best friend was dying.

_She's going to die…_ Toombs thought

But not here. Not in this death field

Toombs activated his comms.

"_This is Corporal Toombs. Shepherd, get Emily out of here….I got your back"_

He took one last look at Emily's beautiful face.

"_I love you, Corporal Kyle Toombs"_

Before turning around he looked back.

"_I love you too, Emily….I love You Too"_

Then in an instant,

Toombs closed his eyes and threw himself into the sea of the serpent-like creatures.

Shepherd and Emily observed wide-eyed as Toombs flung himself towards the Serpents, hoping to drive them off.

Shepherd took Emily and ran to the dropship.

The pilot was also hit by acid but there was nothing Shepherd could do to help him.

Once in the dropship, shepherd placed the dying marine on a row of seats, and sprinted to the controls.

He prayed to god that the ship would make it.

After the engines rumbled to life they made it.

The serpents wanted to eat him badly. They were now were fighting each other for Toombs.

While they fought they made no use of the acid (due to them being immune to it), giving Toombs the time he needed to get into hiding.

He jumped into one of the holes created from the acid shower.

Only this was no ordinary hole.

When he jumped in he discovered that it was some kind of hidden shaft. Then he started to hear voices.

"Well they sure got beat up. Look at that thresher maw rape that…" someone replied, cuckling

Could there be people behind this?

Toombs readied his pistol, thinking of his friends…of Emily.

They were going to pay for this.

He found an opening into the room. This seemed to be some sort of lounge, holding drinks, a flat veiwscreen showing bird's eye view of the battle.

Out of all the people laughing he never expected…guys in lab coats.

_What type of science meeting am I at? _Toombs wondered about. Yet there would be time to ask questions later.

He fired a shot right at the view screen all of the viewers rotated towards Toombs, shaken looks on their faces.

"Alright…" He began in a deep voice "WHICH ONE OF YOU SHITHEADs IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?"

The scientists remained silent.

"I'LL TORTUTUE ALL OF YOU THE HECK OUT OF IT THEN!"

Toombs was about to fire until something pierced his back. Over his Shoulder, , clad in full armor had approached him silently, and injected a serum into an exposing hole in his battered armor.

Toombs fell on the ground. As he looked up he saw the scientist and Ms. Moier stand in a ring formation staring down at him.

"Ahh…a survivor…" the Assassin said, cheerfully, hiding her features beneath her black visor.

"I'll get another experiment ready Ms. Moier"

Toombs tried to get up or say something more but his body wouldn't respond. The scientists dragged him off.

"Oh we are going to have fun." Andrew hissed grinning.

One of the scientists, Wayne, just stared at Toombs's limp body being carried away.

Even as the marine wasn't physically a threat….a chill went down his spine.

Wayne hoped he wouldn't survive the next experiments.

"Tell… Me, Shepherd…what happened to…Toombs.."

"He Saved us, Private Casey"

Emily cried more.

"I…loved Him"

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"My Journal….Give it, to….my family."

She held a small booklet in her hands. Shepherd took it.

He saw Emily was crying some more.

"Emily, I need you to smile for me…for Toombs. I know its hard… but ….I promise you…I'll remember you as the best family I ever had."

"And I will remember you…like…like a dad…"

She gave a salute gesture with her arm…smiling, her tears dried.

She closed her eyes and passed out smiling

Shepherd returned the salute and wiped his own tears.

He returned to the cockpit and set a beacon so any alliance ships in the area would come to their aid.

But what else was there to bring aid too?

He looked toward Emily's dead body. His brave marines didn't deserve this.

For the rest of time he would sever in the alliance, he would carry the thought that he was always the sole survivor of Akuze.

And he swore one day he would make up for it.


End file.
